Authorities’ response to video of defective mines being delivered to 151st Mechanised Brigade

The Director of the Department of Military-Technical Policy, Development of Weapons and Military Equipment of the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine Brigadier General V. Stetsiuk was present.

According to the report, more than 60,000 82mm mines of the calibre shown in the video, manufactured by one of the enterprises of the Ministry of Strategic Industry, were supplied to the troops, and no complaints were received from the troops. There are about 800 mines of this series left in the warehouse, and a batch of these mines is going to be fired to test them at a training ground. I was surprised that for some reason the working group did not decide to call mortar operators or go to Donbas to see how our soldiers use these mines. I hope the working group will do so.

Why is there no complaint about the mines? As it turned out, there is some kind of unofficial agreement among the military leadership to prohibit reporting problems with mines to the Ministry of Strategic Industries.

The personnel of the 151st Brigade are being forced to sign reports as if they had not received mines of this type at all, and as if they had not recorded the video. I have not yet found out the level of who is specifically demanding that they sign such reports.

Perhaps the reason is that defective mines have to be used anyway in the absence of a supply of quality ammunition. This series of mines with an M-6 fuze does not detonate. That is why our soldiers have started to refurbish the mines themselves. The soldiers replace the low-quality explosive charges on the mines, sort out the powder, and put 10 grams of plastid under the fuze. In this way, most of the mines modified by the mortar crew explode, but there are still a large number of unexploded mines, the nature of which is not known, as neither the Ministry of Strategic Industry nor the Ministry of Defence investigate such cases at the front, either with 120 mm or 82 mm mines.

The mortar crews say that the likely reason for the large number of unexploded ordnance is a violation of the technology of filling explosives into the mines.

In addition, compared to mines produced by NATO countries (82 mm calibre is supplied, for example, by Bulgaria), the accuracy of MinStrategProm's mines is very low.

However, it is impossible to draw the right conclusions, as the Ministry of Strategic Industries and the Ministry of Defence have never visited the frontline to find out the reasons for the use of defective mines in the brigades that use them, and all inspections are conducted only at training grounds.

I hope that the members of the working group of the Ministry of Strategic Industries and the Ministry of Defence will be able to organise a trip to the front at least once, to the real 82 mm and 120 mm positions, and talk to infantry mortar launchers themselves.

I talk to a lot of mortar operators, and censorship does not allow me to convey how critical they are of the massive supply of defective mines.

I would like to remind you that the Ministry of Strategic Industries and the Ministry of Defence have never issued an official explanation and have not even refuted or commented on media reports. It would be understandable if there were shortages in small batches as a result of a sharp increase in production, but the problem is spreading and not being solved, and this must be corrected.

Responsible officials are hiding from explanations in their offices. In 2024, the Ministry of Strategic Industries received UAH 25 billion from taxpayers for the mine production programme.

Yurii Butusov, Censor. NET